Why Covid killed more pregnant women in Brazil than anywhere else

Brazil saw the world’s highest numbers of Covid-19 deaths among pregnant and postpartum women in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. And these figures continued to rise, more than doubling in the following year. A total of 1,948 deaths, 1,488 in 2021 alone. The majority (59 percent) of the victims had no prior health conditions.

A Brazilian study published in The Lancet Americas sought to explore exactly what could justify the country’s elevated rates of maternal mortality. It showed that, in addition to the health system being unprepared to care for these women, medical teams prioritized saving the lives of fetuses, not mothers.

The researchers spoke to relatives of 25 pregnant women who died of Covid between 2020 and 2021. Only seven had prior health conditions, most of which were related to their pregnancy. 

“No, they should have saved the mother”

In most cases, the first barrier came in initial care, during which many women received inaccurate diagnoses that did not promptly identify their coronavirus infection. According to data from the Health Ministry, there was a delay of around seven days between the onset of symptoms...